On view now through January 2010, “The Dark Monarch” explores “the influence of folklore, mysticism, mythology, and the occult on the development of art in Britain.” The name of the exhibition alludes to St. Ives artist Sven Berlin’s controversial autobiography, which has been republished since it was first withdrawn following legal action. The exhibition focuses primarily on works that draw a relationship with the “landscape and legends of the British Isles.”

Damien Hirst, “The Child’s Dream” (2008). Via Telegraph.

Related Links:
The Dark Monarch: Magic and Modernity in British Art [Guardian UK]
The Dark Monarch [Tate St. Ives]
The Dark Monarch Review [Dazed Digital]
Tricks of the Light: Weird Visions in Art [The Independent]
The Dark Monarch [BBC Cornwall]

David Noonan, “Untitled” (2007). Via Dazed Digital.

According to St. Ives, the show seeks to “examine the development of early Modernism, Surrealism, and Neo-Romanticism in the UK, as well as the reappearance of esoteric and arcane references in a significant strand of contemporary art practice.”

Paul Nash, “The Combat Angel or Devil” (1910). Via Telegraph.

Barbara Hepworth, “Disc with Strings” (1969). Via Telegraph.

“The Dark Monarch” features a key work by Damien Hirst along with several pieces by other artists including Graham Sutherland, Paul Nash, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Leslie Hurry, John Piper, Cecil Collins, Wyn Evans, John Stezeker, Clare Woods, Derek Jarman, Eva Rothschild, and many more.

Derek Jarman, “Sulphur” (1971). Via Telegraph.

“The Fairy Feller’s Masterstroke” (1855-65). Via Dazed Digital.

On view now until January 2010, the Whitney Museum of American Art is featuring abstract works by Georgia O’Keeffe. The exhibition contains over 130 paintings, drawings, watercolors, and sculptures by O’Keeffe, including selections taken from Alfred Stieglitz’s photographic portrait series of the artist. “Abstraction” will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, which follows O’Keeffe’s celebrated career and life.

Related Links:
Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction [Whitney Museum of American Art]
In Full Flower, Before the Desert [NY Times]
Out of the Erotic Ghetto [NY Magazine]
Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction [Time Out: New York]
Georgia O’Keeffe, Whitney Museum, New York [FT.com]
Love It Or Hate It, O’Keeffe’s at the Whitney [New York Observer]
Painting a New Picture of Georgia O’Keeffe [The Wall Street Journal]

Georgia O’Keeffe, “Series I, No. 3″ (1918). Via NY Times.

The exhibition focuses primarily on O’Keeffe’s abstract works, beginning with a group of charcoal drawings created in 1915. According to the Whitney Museum, “In these and subsequent abstractions, O’Keeffe sought to transcribe her ineffable thoughts and emotions.” Her work in abstract painting and drawing, though erratic, makes her one of the first American abstract artists to date.

Georgia O’Keeffe, “Blue Flower” (1918). Via NY Times.

Georgia O’Keeffe, “Series I, No. 8″ (1919). Via NY Times

Georgia O’Keeffe, “Early Abstraction” (1915). Via NY Times.

Georgia O’Keeffe, “Music, Pink and Blue No. 2″ (1918). Via NY Times.

Georgia O’Keeffe was born in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, on November 15, 1887. She is known worldwide for her paintings of flowers, shells, animal bones, and Southwest landscapes. Later in her life, she settled in New Mexico where she produced several of her most prominent works. O’Keeffe died on March 6, 1998, at the age of 98.

Georgia O’Keeffe, “Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. IV” (1930). Via NY Times.

Georgia O’Keeffe, “Flower Abstraction” (1924). Via NY Times.

Georgia O’Keeffe, “Abstraction” (1926). Via NY Times.

Currently on view at Mary Boone Gallery is Iris, featuring new paintings by Marc Quinn. Each work depicts large renditions of the iris of the human eye spotted and permeated with bright colors.  Such new works refer back to Quinn’s recurring themes of the body and identity, flesh and the spirit. The works examine the significance of the eye, which since Biblical times have been likened to representations of the soul.  The works also recall earlier works by Quinn such as Self (1991), in which the artist’s head was cast in his own blood, where he similarly examines the act of bringing the inside out.

Bayon Sunbow 67 (2009) by Marc Quinn, via Mary Boone Gallery

Vogue calls the show, “Breathlessly trippy, incontestably New Age-y.” The show displays a body of work that shifts between the physical and the otherworldly. In the artist’s own words, “They are like a leakage of the vivid interior world of the body to the monochrome world of the skin.”

Iris (We Share our Chemistry with the Stars) LG 280L (2009) by Marc Quinn, via Mary Boone Gallery

Born in London in 1964, he studied Art History at Cambridge University and began working as a sculptor in 1984. He is often categorized with the YBAs or Young British Artists. Self (1991), a sculpture in which a cast of the artist’s head made from 4.5 liters of his own blood, brought him more closely into the public eye. He has since exhibited in the United Kingdom and abroad, partaking in shows such as the Sydney Biennale in 1992, the Young British Artists II at the Saatchi Gallery in 1993, and “Sensation” at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1997.

Iris (We Share our Chemistry with the Stars) SO 200L (2009) by Marc Quinn, via Mary Boone Gallery

Related Links:
Press Release [Mary Boone Gallery]
Marc Quinn “Iris” [NY Art Beat]
The Short List [Vogue]

-R.A.P

In contrast to the slim pickings made available to buyers at Christie’s Modern and Impressionist Evening sale on November 3, last night’s sale at Sotheby’s offered many iconic works that had bidders excited and which resulted in an auction that Simon Shaw, Head of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Department in New York described as “a shot in the arm for the art market. A real vote of confidence.” The evening’s auctioneer Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s Worldwide Head of Contemporary Art, commented that after all his time at Sotheby’s he had never seen such an active sale. And indeed it was, with a grand total of $181,760,000 over a high-end estimate of $163,600,000, this sale marked the first time since May 2006 that Sotheby’s in New York have exceeded their top estimate.

L’Homme qui Chavire, Alberto Giacometti – an instantly recognizable icon of the modern era cast in 1951. Sold for a remarkable $19,346,500.

More text, images, related links and video after the jump….

Girafe En Feu, Salvador Dalí

Fernand Léger’s Les Trois Musiciens, ler Etat, a vivid depiction of the spirit of the pre-war era, was highly sought-after, totalling $5,682,500.

Grande Teatro, Marino Marini (1958-60)

The exciting and vibrant tone of the auction was set almost immediately when the first lot of the sale, Salvador Dalí’s Girafe En Feu, sold for $1.8 million – almost ten times the original estimate of $200,000. As we reported yesterday there is a strong market for Dalí paintings, but no-one seemed prepared for the fast and furious series of bids that arose when this piece to the crowd which ended in a record-breaking price for a work on paper by the artist which previously stood at $1,141,732.

This was not the only record by medium set for an artist last night – Marino Marini’s, Grande Teatro, a stunning and monumental painting in which Marini’s favorite subject of horse and rider is combined with a theatrical setting, knocked out the previous record set in 2000 of $733,965, when it sold for $1,482,500.

Tête d’homme, Alberto Giacometti (1964-65) sold for $3,300,000 – far over its high-estimate of $2million.

ArtObserved’s video of the excited bidding for Giacometti’s Tête d’homme

Two spectacular Fauvist works were among the new auction records established this evening. Five different bidders competed for Kees van Dongen’s powerful masterwork Jeune Arabe, driving the final price to a record-breaking $13,802,500, well above a high estimate of $10 million.

Buste d’Homme, Pablo Picasso (1969) among the top ten lots of the night it was one of Picasso’s greatest monumental interpretations of the musketeer. It sold for $10,386,500.

Barques au port de Collioure, André Derain (1905)

André Derain’s seminal Fauvist landscape Barques au port de Collioure also inspired heated bidding from six different collectors; it eventually sold to Guy Bennett for $14,802,500, surpassing the high estimate of $8 million and comfortably doubling the artist’s previous record. Bennett recently resigned as co-head of Christie’s Impressionist and Modern art department worldwide leaving Thomas Seydoux in charge of a department who failed to impress bidders with their auction on November 3.

The total of Sotheby’s auction nearly tripled the Christie’s result. 84.8% of the works on offer were sold, with five of those works fetching in excess of $10 million. Emmanuel Di-Donna, Vice Chairman of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Department Worldwide, reflected on the success of the auction, “when you have the right property, such as the iconic work by Giacometti which made $19.3 against a high estimate of $12 million, you get fireworks.” This sentiment was echoed by Simon Shaw, Head of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Department in New York, “we wanted to put together a sale with works that were not just of great quality but were also presented with attractive estimates. I think the great depth of bidding we saw this evening is a testament to that strategy.”

Avant la course, Edgar Degas (c.1882-88) sold for $4.1 million

Femme au Chapeau Blanc, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1892). Sold at its low estimate; $2.5 million

While records were being broken on bidding for Modern masterpieces, it is clear demand continues for classic Impressionist works, as evidenced by the fantastic results achieved for seven paintings from the Durand-Ruel Family Collection. Encompassing works by a number of the Impressionist masters that the legendary art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel represented – Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley, many of which had not been exhibited since the 1950s – together the collection totaled at $18.9 million, well above the high estimate of $12.6 million.

Krass und Mild (Dramatic and Mild), Wassily Kandinsky (1932), one of the greatest Bauhaus-period works to have appeared at auction in decades, achieved $10,610,500 over an estimate of $6/8 million

While Christie’s representatives were very firm that the art market is still in recovery, Meyer joined his colleagues in asserting that the art market is very much alive,“we saw an extraordinary depth of bidding at all levels tonight, from $350,000 all the way up to $12 million. Sometimes I couldn’t keep up with all of the people who were consecutively and simultaneously bidding. There was participation from America, Europe and across Asia – it was an incredible thing to experience.”

ArtObserved are set to continue our auction season coverage next week when the Contemporary sales kick-off on Tuesday, November 10, at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips de Pury & Company.

Related Links:
Sotheby’s Homepage
Sotheby’s Scores [ArtInfo]
Sotheby’s Rallies With Lively Sale [WallStreetJournal]
Prices Far Surpass Estimates at Sotheby’s Auction [NYTimes]
Art Market Watch [ArtNet]
New York Impressionist/Modern Sales 2001-2009 [Art Market Monitor]
Record Prices Mark Art Sale Boom [BBC News]
Sotheby’s Outguns Christie’s With Sale of Giacomettis, Picassos [Bloomberg]
With Top Quality Offerings, Sotheby’s Nets $181 Million [NYTimes]
Activity, Prices Bounce Back at Sotheby’s Auction [Reuters]

The Nominal Three (to William of Ockham)

Now on view at David Zwirner in New York is the city’s biggest Dan Flavin show in over a decade.  Last month the gallery announced that it would have exclusive rights over the Estate of the New York minimalist who died in 1996.  Series and Progressions opens at David Zwirner’s West 19th Street complex in Chelsea on November 5th. Curated by Tiffany Bell, the exhibit reveals Flavin’s use of progressives and serial structures which the artist incorporated throughout his career.

Press Release [David Zwirner]
David Zwirner to Hold First Dan Flavin Exhibition: Series and Progressions [Artdaily]
Recalling Flavin [NY Times]
David Zwirner Planning New York’s Biggest Dan Flavin Show in Over a Decade [The L Magazine]

Alternating Pink and “Gold” (1967) by Dan Flavin, via David Zwirner

One of Flavin’s feature works is the nominal tree (to William of Ockham). The installation was of great importance to the artist’s body of work because it was the first work in which he explored a ’systematic procedure.’ The work consists of six fluorescent lamps in three vertical sets grouped as one, two, and three lamps.  It honors the Medieval English theologian, William of Ockham, for formulating the methodological principle “Ockham’s Razor” where one forms a hypothesis based on the most concise means available.

Untitled (1968) by Dan Flavin, via David Zwirner

The exhibit will also include Untitled (to Helga and Carlo with respect and affection) (1974) where the artist created a fence-like modular sequence of square lamp units which fills the space with fluorescent blue light. The work was part of a series of four related “barriers” (in blue, pink, yellow, and green) and has not been displayed since it was first on view in 1975 in a solo presentation of Flavin’s work at the Kunsthalle Basel. The work is dedicated to Carlo Huber, who was the director of the Kunsthalle Basel, and his wife Helga.

Untitled (to Helga and Carlo with respect and affection) (1974) by Dan Flavin, via David Zwirner

New York- born Minimalist Dan Flavin (1933-1996) had his first exhibitions at the Judson Gallery in 1961 and the Green Gallery in 1964, both located in New York.  His work has since been shown in international galleries all over the world. A major museum retrospective devoted to the artist’s work was organized in cooperation with the Estate of Dan Flavin by the Dia Foundation in association with the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. where it was first exhibited in 2004. A permanent large-scale installation work in colored fluorescent light can be found in Marfa, Texas. It is installed in six buildings at the Chinati Foundation. Another long-term installation of Flavin’s work is located in Bridgehampton, New York where in 1983 the artist began renovating a former firehouse and church in order to house his works of art. The space served as well as a place to hold exhibitions as well as a printmaking facility for local artists. The building is now called the Dan Flavin Art Institute and is preserved by the Dia Foundation.

Untitled (1968) by Dan Flavin, via David Zwirner

-To benefit Performa 09, party designer Jennifer Rubell invites 600 guests to “Creation” held at X Initiative in Chelsea in New York, where 3,600 drinking glasses, a pyramid of unshelled peanuts and 2,000 pound hillock of honey-soaked ribs were among the excess of food being served (Performa 09/ Food for Thought) [The Moment]

-In related, To mark the start of Performa 09 MoMA invited Fischerspooner to stage a show (Performance Art Enters the Museum) [Artinfo]

-In related, At Haunch of Venison in New York Marina Abramovich, Leandro Erlich, Mickalene and Rob Wynn pair with NYC pastry chefs to create performances; cakes were served by topless models (Kreemart or Cream Art Performance at Haunch of Venison) [NY Art Beat]

-Bikes used by Lance Armstrong and with frames designed by contemporary artists fetch $1.3 million at auction in Sotheby’s, among them Damien Hirst’s sold for $500,000 (Armstrong’s Tour de France Bikes Fetch $1.3 Million at Auction) [Bloomberg]

To stay apprised of most of the relevant art news for this past week…

Innocence Lost, Damien Hirst via Art Fag City

-Available from a publishing house founded by Damiein Hirst, Hugh Allan and Frank Dunphy is a Damien Hirst’s editioned, baby bottle with an alcohol drenched sausage inside [Other Criteria via Art Fag City]

-In related, A visiting Professor to the London Business School uses Hirst’s past 20 years of experience as a case study for building original business strategies in the art market [Financial Times]

-One of Ukraine’s richest men, Viktor Pinchuk, plans to build a contemporary art center in Kiev – bigger than his existing PinchukArtCenter which is the first private center of contemporary art in the former USSR [Bloomberg]

One of Jeff Koons Puppy sculptures via Animal New York

-As Peter Brant speaks of his divorce he comments that the Jeff Koons Puppy sculpture costs between $75,000 and $100,000 a year to maintain [ArtReview]

-The  Power 100 begets the Powerless-20, the 20 least significant people in the art world [Hyperallergic]

James Rosenquist via The New York Times

-Mr. Rosenquist, one of the Pop art icons of the 60s, writes a memoir titled “Painting Below Zero” (Rosenquist Writ Large, by Himself) [The New York Times]

-As auction houses and art fairs attract the media spotlight, 53 influential New York dealers and seven not-for-profits unite to create “New York Gallery Week” [Lindsay Pollock]

Felix Gonzalez-Torres billboard on sixth avenue and Canal street, New York via Purple Diary

-Flag Art Foundation organizes a show of billboards created by Felix-Gonzalez-Torres and Jim Hodges to be scattered in various locations in New York [Flag Art Foundation]

-Van Gogh’s letters are translated to English and are presented along with the originals on a new site [Art Market Monitor]

A day before seven bicycles with frames designed by contemporary artists, and used by Lance Armstrong in his comeback season for July’s Tour de France, raised $1.3 million, an exhibition of artwork commissioned to benefit the legendary cyclist’s cancer foundation opened at Deitch Projects.  Launched in Paris at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, STAGES- the exhibit comprised of commissioned works created by over twenty established contemporary artists, is currently on view at New York’s Deitch Projects. Artists involved include Cai Guo-Qiang, Rosson Crow, Shepard Fairey, KAWS, Yoshitomo Nara, Catherine Opie, Os Gemeos, Raymond Pettibon, Andreas Gursky, Richard Prince, Ed Ruscha and Tom Sachs. STAGES will run through November 21, 2009.  AO interviews some of the artists to find out their personal connection to the cause of STAGES, their view on creating commissioned work and the story of their involvement with the project powered by Lance Armstrong Foundation and Nike and its goal of raising awareness of cancer.

Rosson Crow in front of her piece “Texas Cycle Show”

Works presented in STAGES manifest not merely a vast array of mediums and stylistic approaches, they also speak of a multitude of equally appropriate paths the artists have taken in building the show.

Rosson Crow about STAGES: “This whole thing is incredible and overwhelming, it is a really awesome show with a great cause. Charity work is something that I love doing so this was a really cool opportunity. This painting that I did for the show is called ‘Texas Cycle Show’ and is based on an 1800′ cycle exposition. I made it Texas because both Lance and I are from Texas… kind of bringing the historical Texas vibe… and of course the bicycles I thought were perfect for a Lance Armstrong show [laughs]” When asked about any personal connections that the artist has with the cause, Rosson Crow comments that “it is hard to find anybody whose life has not been affected by cancer, so I think that everybody has a personal relationship to it in some way.”

Yoshitomo Nara, “Fire” via STAGES

More text, images and interviews after the jump…

Catherine Opie, “Untitled (Road)” via STAGES

Eric White posing in front of his work “Foyer”

Indeed, some of the work created for STAGES is tied to highly personal experiences, as Eric White tells AO when asked about his involvement with Lance Armstrong Foundation’s exhibit: “I have a personal connection to it because my mom almost died of oral cancer, so the piece that I did relates to my mother’s experience with oral cancer and the surgery recovery.”
As the collaboration between the artists and the Lance Armstrong Foundation is to not only benefit cancer research with the proceeds from the sales, but also promote awareness of the spreading decease and essentially help promote the foundation itself, artists recruited were asked to use color yellow in their works and bring in work associated with the theme. Eric White comments on the phenomenon of creating a “cause-specific” work: “It was actually great, because I was able to put my mother’s experience into it, I guess generally I prefer to not have anything in mind when I am working and just go in my own direction, but I was able to bring that context into my work [...] I don’t think this piece would have come out if I did not have this particular event, for one thing, one of the requirements was to include yellow, but I probably would not have thought to put yellow; but I was able to make it feel like my work, although it is specific to this and it does work with the themes.”
When asked whether his mom likes the piece he donated, Eric White laughs and says: “She is my mom, she has to like it.”

Shepard Fairey, Jessica via STAGES

KAWS posing in front of his work “The End”

In an interview with AO, KAWS speaks of the piece he donated to the Lance Armstrong Foundation and how he got involved with the STAGES exhibit through Jamie O’Shea- editor of Supertouch, who curated the show. “I think I was originally approached by Jamie O’Shea, knowing Mark Parker and Lance, they just invited me to be a part of it, pretty casual I think.”

KAWS speaks of his relationship with Lance Armstrong: “You know it is not like we go play Basketball together, I met him several times. He seems to be a really committed guy, you could tell by what he does… I was shocked to find out that he crashed on the bike after the Tour de France was done, just to see the X-rays and then he is back up doing a race. You know I would be home eating ice-cream for about three years laughing up sympathy from people, so it says a lot about his character. It’s good and inspiring to work with people like that, to work with causes like that.”

When asked about his reaction to the idea of creating a commissioned piece KAWS comments: “It was a really loose thing, I just created a work that had to do with STAGES, as far as imagery, there was no direction, it was pretty open [...] It is great to be able to do exhibitions that benefit causes like Livestrong. For me, when there is an opportunity to do a strong show with a good cause and the money going to charity, it is kind of a no-brainer” Regarding the use of yellow, the artist says: “I use yellow so much in my work that it didn’t really matter, I mean that would have been yellow if I made that painting for myself.”
KAWS describes “The End” as a half way point between his experience with abstract painting and his “Sponge Bob” works. Referencing the story of Lance Armstrong in his piece, KAWS says: “He [Lance Armstrong] broke his collar bone on my bike that I designed for him, when he was racing in Spain.”

Andreas Gursky, “Tour de France 1″ via STAGES

Dustin Yellin

STAGES brings under one roof works of legendary street artists who have made their ways into galleries as well as those who have undergone a more conservative path in their gain of fame. The participating artists seem to welcome this blurring of the boundaries describing it as interesting and fruitful. Dustin Yellin says: “When you do put different works together, it is more about the relationships formed between the works, rather than just the individual works themselves; so if all the work was the same, it would be homogenized, monotonous and uninteresting, so I think that it actually breeds a really fertile ground for ideas to be born”; while Rosson Crow comments that “it is a really amazing group of artists” and that “it is great to see the differences and the similarities between everybody.”

Dustin Yellin speaks of his donated work “If Ink Were Blood (Man and Woman)” as his wish to “illustrate the human from the inside out, because it’s such a dynamic machine and we only see the surfaces of things, the facades, I wanted to really get inside.”

Christopher Wool, “Untitled” via STAGES

José Parlá posing in front of his work “Untitled (Dedicated to Dr. Alan Berkman)”

José Parlá’s career like that of KAWS and Futura has roots of recognition going back to street art. Hence, the work he dedicated to Dr. Alan Berkman who did not survive cancer, pays homage to names- reminiscent of tagging, and incorporates the textures and colors of the walls that play the role of canvases in the realms of street art. “I pay homage to names” he says, “Using writing as one of using writing as one of the major gestures in my work, when I was invited to do this piece and I started thinking about what I could do, the first thing that came to my mind was my family how my grandmother and grandfather died from cancer one of my aunts and uncles are living now with cancer fighting it. So I start thinking about how to pay homage to the people who have been attacked by this decease, how it really does not discriminate at all and will attack anyone. And then talking with the Lance Armstrong Foundation, I asked them for a list of cancer survivors that they had worked with, as an inspiration. I dedicated this work to Dr. Alan Berkman, who passed away from cancer the week that I was finishing the piece. So it translates as a piece that pays homage to names, all of the webbing of lines that you see, all the white lining that you see, is layered names of cancer survivors and patients that passed away from cancer. The piece in reality is a homage to everyone.”

The Tipping Point, Dzine

Dzine: “I like to create environments, so for the bike, although it’s a bicycle rotating, I have an audio component on there. If you listen to it, it has this really beautiful aura that floats around.”

Dzine in front of the steps of the Deitch Gallery

Dzine tells AO: “To be honest, whether if I did a bike, or actually did a painting that had no reference to his [Lance Armstrong's] legacy and what he does, you know I think the bigger picture is to just get the word out there about cancer research, and to get the word out you know either via press or financially, if we sold a piece and the money goes to the foundation its great and that’s what we are here for… you know he has been a big supporter of all the artists involved in the show, he has been a big supporter of everyone’s work”
“I thought this is the perfect opportunity and the right chance to do something morally and so I donated 100 percent of my proceeds to the foundation because if it sells it’s great, but also the most important is- the right coverage for this thing.”

Geoff McFetridge standing in front of his piece “Even The Simplest Shapes Wish to Become Logos One Day”

Detail of JR’s piece. An installation comprised of a collage upon an audio system, it played the recording of a heart beat of a cancer victim.

JR, Heart Beats

JR writes: “Linda lives in Morro da Providencia, the oldest favela in Rio, Brazil. In this place, houses are made of plastic, and kid’s guns are made of steel. Nothing runs: no schools, no hospitals, no social services. Linda has throat cancer and she might be dead by the end the STAGES exhibition tour. She used to be a choral teacher. She lost her voice, but her heart is still beating…”

Installation view of STAGES at Deitch Projects

Jamie O’Shea and Shepard Fairey at STAGES

Installation view STAGES

José Parlá, Jamie O’Shea, Jules de Balincourt, Dustin Yellin, Eric White at STAGES

An installation view of Tom Sachs’ “Lance’s Tequila Bike for Girls”

Detail of “Lance’s Tequila Bike for Girls”

Related Links:
STAGES [Official Website]
STAGES at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin [ArtObserved]
Sir Lancelot [Style.com]
Armstrong’s Tour de France Bikes Fetch $1.3 Million at Auction [Bloomberg]
Lance Armstrong’s “STAGES” exhibition Rides into New York City [Vanity Fair]
PARIS///LANCE ARMSTRONG’S TREK ART BIKES COME TO LIFE IN THE WINDOW OF COLETTE [Supertouch]

Last night, November 3, the fall auction season in New York kicked-off at Christie’s with their Impressionist and Modern evening sale – the smallest since May 2004. While vigorous bidding wars ensued for the finer pieces in the sale, there was no escaping the deathly silence that occurred when auctioneer, Christopher Burge, called for bids on a number of the auction highlights which included works by Camille Pissaro, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, that eventually went unsold. Of the 40 lots on sale, 28 sold – making the overall total of $65,674,000, under the low-end estimate of $68,650,000.

More text, images and related links after the jump….

Tamara De Lempicka’s Portrait du Marquis Sommi (1925), which sold to a telephone bidder for $4,338,500 over an estimate of $2–3 million.

Le Baiser (The Kiss), Auguste Rodin (Conceived in 1880-1881 and cast between 1887-1901)

At the post-sale press conference, standing in front of Edgar Degas’s Danseuses, Burge stated that he suspected there to be no obvious pattern to what sold and what didn’t. However, much can be said in reflection of the geographical statistics of buyers. 42% of the total sales were from European buyers, 30% American, 4% Asian with “Other” accounting for 20% of sales. And while the attractive dollar can be held accountable for the large number of Asian and European buyers, the large number of Surrealist and Art Deco-era work, described by Judd Tully, writing for ArtInfo, as “Russian-taste pictures,” on offer could perhaps give reason to the amount of attention from buyers belonging to the “Other” category – an area which encompasses Russian and former Soviet bloc states as well as locations such as the United Arab Emirates.

Rosace, Henri Matisse (1954) Estimate: $3,000,000 – $4,000,000. Did not sell.

Among the “Russian-taste pictures” on offer at last night’s auction were two pickings from Tamara De Lempicka and an early Salvador Dali oil painting, Nu dans la plaine de Rosas. Again, speaking at the press conference, Burge noted the very strong prices for the two Lempicka paintings which both greatly exceeded estimates – something that he acknowledges as a trend at Christie’s despite Lempicka’s relative new appearance at the evening sales.

Portrait de le Duchesse de Valmy, Tamara De Lempicka. Pre-sale estimate: $600,000 – $800,000. Sold for $1,370,500.

Dali’s, Nu dans la plaine de Rosas, sold for $4,002,500, the second highest price at auction for the artist. In light of the success of Dali’s work seen at last week’s Prints & Multiples sale at Christie’s – in which all 6 prints by Dali on offer sold quickly and beyond expectation – as acknowledged by Christie’s staff, there is still a strong interest in Dali’s work.

Rodin’s Le Baiser (The Kiss), an exceedingly rare lifetime cast, was the sale’s top lot, earning $6,354,500 on estimates of $1,500,000 – $2,000,000. The sale of this piece started at a ferocious pace on the phones as well as in the room itself, at one point a confused Burge, in an attempt to keep up with the action, settled himself on the rostrum and cried, “it’s all over the place.” The sale eventually came to a head with a battle between Jeffrey Deitch and the eventual winner, the New York private dealer, Chris Eykyn.

Vétheuil, effet de soleil, Claude Monet (1901) Estimate $5 – 7 million. Sold for $5,458,500.

Always expected to do well with a pre-sale estimate of $7-9million, Edgar Degas’ pastel drawing Danseuses, sold to an anonymous Asian bidder on the telephone with Ken Yeh, a Deputy Chairman of Christie’s Asia for $10,722,500 – the top sale of the evening. Marc Porter, President of Christie’s Americas, noted that the active bidding on this piece, which was particularly striking on the telephones, indicates the enduring worldwide interest in classic Impressionist pictures.

Despite the optimism of the Christie’s representatives that 70% of their lots were sold, there is no ignoring the 12 distinguished pieces that did not sell – 3 of which had been illuminated at ’sale highlights.’

Composition II, with Red, Piet Mondrian (1926) $4,500,000 – $6,500,000 – Did not sell.

Tête de femme, Pablo Picasso (1943)

Painted in October 1943, Picasso’s Tete de Femme, a portrait of his muse Dora Maar, was noted by Christie’s specialists as due to its pallet of great saturated primary colors, “unusual” especially for a war-time picture – a period normally associated with somber colors. Tete de Femme was estimated to fetch between $7 and $10 million and so when bids came to a halt at $6.4million questions were inevitably raised about the demand for Modern Art. Lindsay Pollock, writing for Bloomberg, has observed that none of the museum-worthy paintings that were on show at last month’s Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain (FIAC) have yet confirmed buyers.

Le Pont du chemin de fer, Pontoise, Camille Pissarro (c. 1873)

While this may be a worthy observation, we must still address the two anticipated paintings by Camille Pissarro Le Pont du chemin de fer, Pontoise and Pommiers à Pontoise, la maison du père Gallien. When questioned about the possible flaws of the painting, Connor Jordan – for whom it was his first sale as Head of Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Department – he remarked that he had no explanation for the lack of interest during the sale. However, only one hour after the auction, Jordan was quick to boast that he already had two business cards in his pocket from interested buyers for the Picasso and both Pissarro paintings.

Tonight is Sotheby’s turn to auction an equally impressive array of Modern and Impressionist works; ArtObserved will be on site to report all happenings as they happen.

Related Links:
Christie’s Homepage
Christie’s Amasses $65.67 Million in a Sparse Impressionist Sale [NYTimes]
Picasso Flops as Impressionist Auction Misses Target [Bloomberg]
Degas Pastel is Highlight of Tepid Christie’s Sale [NYTimes]
Fall Auctions Off to a Limp Start at Christie’s [Reuters]
Season Opens Softly at Christie’s [ArtInfo]
Christie’s Sells $66 Million Impressionist Art; Picasso Unsold [Bloomberg]
Christie’s Modern Art Sale Falls Short [WSJ]
Christie’s Imp/Mod Evening Results [ArtMarketMonitor]

Terence Koh, a controversial Canadian multimedia artist, has premiered his first solo show with Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris. The enigmatic exhibition cum installation cum operatic performance in two parts distinctly embodies Koh’s ouevre. The gallery is transformed via the artist’s multitude of references to mythology, identity, power, religion, fashion and sexuality. In addition to the time-based pieces Koh presented on October 6th and October 22nd, on display are various objects and wall pieces executed in the artist’s signature white monochrome style. An amalgam of drawings, photographs, and collages document the experimental opera project and reflect the influence of Parisian architecture and sensibility on Koh’s art.

A photograph of Adansonias opera performance staged by Terence Koh and 8 white-clad participants via Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

More text and images after the jump…

Drawings and photographs represent physical memoirs and love notes to Paris created by Koh during his stay via Galerie Thaddeaus Ropac

Terence Koh, also known as asianpunkboy, earned his sensationalist reputation with such acts as gold-plating and selling his own excrement for $500,000 at Art Basel 2006, exhibiting nothing at an opening show of Javier Peres’s gallery in Los Angeles and exhibiting a thin line of bright light in the lobby of The Whitney Museum. Picked up early in his career by the infamous Charles Saatchi, Koh’s career quickly sped into motion with shows and performance acts at Royal Academy of Art in London, Kunsthalle Zürich, and Deitch Projects downtown. In Adansonias, Koh continues to explore his conceptual and symbolic ideas drawing inspirational elements from Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, immersing the audiences into a bizarre universe where anything seems possible.

Portrait of Terence Koh as Andy Warhol via Art Magazin


Postcard to a Rose in Paris, 2009. 53 units, 4 x 6 in each. Via Galerie Thaddeaus Ropac

Postcard to a Rose in Paris, 2009. One of a 53 piece work. Via Galerie Thaddeaus Ropac

Postcard to a Rose in Paris, 2009. Via Galerie Thaddeaus Ropac

Postcard to a Rose in Paris, 2009. Via Galerie Thaddeaus Ropac

Postcard to a Rose in Paris, 2009. Via Galerie Thaddeaus Ropac

Daodao, 2009. An object that is part of the installation via Galerie Thaddeaus Ropac

Postcard to a Rose in Paris, 2009. A photograph of Adansonias performance that took place on October 6th, 2009 via Galerie Thaddeaus Ropac

Terence Koh’s ‘Adansonias’ runs at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris October 6 through November 14, 2009.

Related links:
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac presents “Adansonias”
Brimming From a Ray of Light, the Glare of Elusiveness [NY Times]
ASIANPUNKBOY: THE WHOLE FAMILY [Javier Peres Projects]

On view now at Gagosian Gallery’s West 21st Street location are two large sculptures by Richard Serra. ‘Blind Spot’ and ‘Open Ended’ are similar concentric structures each made of six weatherproof steel plates. ‘Open Ended’ was first exhibited at Gagosian’s London gallery last year and this current exhibition marks the New York debut of both works.

Richard Serra: Blind Spot/Open Ended [Gagosian]
Recent Richard Serra Sculptures Coming to Chelsea [L Magazine]

Richard Serra’s ‘Blind Spot’ via Gagosian Gallery

Serra is known for his massive steel sculptures, many in a similar vein as the two on view, that appear to defy gravity and threaten collapse upon the viewer. This is his first major US exhibition since the 2007 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. In 2008, Serra’s ambitious work, ‘Promenade,’ was installed at the Grand Palais in Paris, consisting of five steel columns over fifty feet high.

Richard Serra’s ‘Blind Spot’ and ‘Open Ended’ via Gagosian Gallery

Richard Serra’s ‘Blind Spot’ and ‘Open Ended’ at Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea are on view October 27 through December 23, 2009.

Christie’s Modern and Impressionist sale this evening, November 3, marks the beginning of the fall auction season in New York. Headlining tonight’s sale are works by Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Piet Mondrian and Henri Matisse. Tomorrow Sotheby’s will follow with their Modern and Impressionist evening sale which is highlighted by Alberto Giacometti’s bronze Falling Man, estimated to sell for $8 million – $12 million along with works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Giacometti’s fellow modern masters Wassily Kandinsky, Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso. The combined total of the evening and day sales from both auction houses is estimated at as much as $607 million, down from $1.7 billion just two years ago.

ArtObserved will be on site to cover the proceedings on twitter at the show and in a review tomorrow. We are set to continue our auction season coverage next week when the Contemporary sales kick-off on Tuesday, November 10, at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips de Pury & Company.

L’Homme Qui Chavire (Falling Man), Alberto Giacometti (1951) via Sotheby’s

Related Links:
Christie’s Homepage
Sotheby’s Homepage
Christie’s Impressionist/Modern Evening Sale – Tuesday, November 3, 2009 – E-Catalogue
Christie’s Impressionist/Modern Day Sale – Wednesday, November 4, 2009 – E-Catalogue
Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale – Wednesday, November 4, 2009- E-Catalogue
Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sale -Thursday, November 5, 2009 – E-Catalogue
On The Block: Traditional Offerings, Bargain Prices [NYTimes]
New House, Taschen Risking Low Prices for Art at Fall Auctions [Bloomberg]
New York Sales Preview [ArtInfo]
Up For Auction [NYTimes]
The Art World Goes Local [WallStreetJournal]
Art World Watching Sales Starting Next Week for Hints of Market Recovery [Financial Post]
As Art Auctions Shrink, Big Houses Look to the Future [Reuters]
The Art Market: Distress Sales, Iron Curtain Art and France’s Turner Prize [Financial Times]

Tate Modern are currently exhibiting the largest ever UK retrospective featuring the work of the prolific Californian artist, John Baldessari, through January 10. Tate Modern’s exhibition, John Baldessari: Pure Beauty, acts as a parallel to the Ed Ruscha exhibition only minutes away at the Hayward Gallery in London’s Southbank Centre; both artists employ humor and a compulsion toward language and American pop culture in their works.

Bloody Sundae 1987 Black and white photographs, vinyl paint © John Baldessari, Courtesy of Baldessari Studio

More text, images, video and related links after the jump….

Interview with John Baldessari via Tate Modern

Everything is Purged…, 1966-68, Acrylic on canvas, The Sonnabend Collection © John Baldessari

Video via Vernissage TV

The exhibition is littered with Baldessari’s unique brand of Conceptualism, playing on Dadaist nihilism and irony. In his 1970, Cremation Project, the artist burnt his earlier paintings at a crematorium and bought a book-shaped urn with his name on it in which to place the ashes. Furthermore, Baldessari baked cookies from the ashes and attempted to feed them to his friends – only one person obliged. The incentive for Cremation Project was related to what Baldessari describes as “eternal return” – evoking the circle of life: pigment is made from the earth and eventually returns to it through digestion and excretion. In the above interview with Tate Modern, regarding this project, Baldessari merely smirks; “I was truly sick”.

Equally, he adopted the Dadaist commentary on authorship in art. Many of the artworks in the exhibition use found photographs or borrowed film stills. Moreover, in the text-paintings displayed, Baldessari removes himself entirely from the production line, employing other individuals to make and prime his canvases, as well as hiring a sign painter to actually paint them. In the late 1960s he disrupted the notions of artist’s eye by thoughtfully composing a photograph, setting up his camera perfectly, only to pick up the camera and move it (without consulting the view finder) to actually take the shot. In an interview, screened just outside the exhibition, he laughs about this describing it as “just a game I played with myself, I mean, who would care?”

Tips for Artists Who Want to Sell 1966-1968, Acrylic on canvas © John Baldessari, Courtesy of The Broad Art Foundation, Santa Monica

Kiss / Panic, 1984. Black and white photographs with oil tint © John Baldessari, Courtesy of Baldessari Studio and Glenstone

This exhibition is thoroughly playful and provocative. It is often funny, in a very droll way. In, I Will Not Make Anymore Boring Art – a film of Baldessari repetitively writing out his title, or The Artist Hitting Various Objects With a Golf Club he transforms the banal into the amusing. When the artist photographs his attempts to exhale cigar smoke in imitation of a small cloud or just waving at boats passing-by, the results are humorous because their charm and whimsy.

Like Ed Ruscha, Baldessari shows great reverence for words and their meaning. The words Baldessari uses in his works and his titles often create a tension between what is said and what is meant. For instance, he reflects on Clement Greenberg’s statement that art concerns aesthetic impact rather than ideas; “you can no more choose whether or not to like a work of art than you can choose to have sugar taste sweet or lemons sour.” The discordant collage of word and image provides a voice for irony similar to that of René Magritte.

Wrong 1966- 1968, Photoemulsion on canvas with acrylic paint © John Baldessari, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Modern and Contemporary Art Council, Young Talent Purchase

For the later works exhibited the tact changes a little. The focus is Baldessari’s deviation from the traditional formal structure of artworks – namely the rectangular format of canvases and photographs. Bloody Sundae comprises two photographs arranged in an inverted T-shape. As the structures become more complicated so do the titles, trying to offer assistance in how to read the different components.

Starry Night Balanced On Triangulated Trouble, 1984, Black and White Photographs one tinted © John Baldessari, Courtesy of The Baldessari Studio and The Gersh Family Collection, Los Angeles

Various Shadows 1984, Gelatin silver prints © John Baldessari, Collection of Dana and Jim Tananbaum

Essentially, Baldessari’s work is concerned with how we see and interpret the world around us. He explains “doing art is the only thing I’ve come across that gives me any idea that I’m anywhere close to understanding what the universe is about. It all sounds very mystical, I know, but that’s what drives me.”

The exhibition will travel to Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 5 February-25 April 2010, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 20 June-12 September 2010, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 17 October 2010-9 January 2011.

Related Links:
Tate Modern Homepage
The Gently Rebellious Artist: John Baldessari [Financial Times]
John Baldessari: a nose for beauty, an ear for truth [TimesOnline]
Art Market News [NYTimes]
Somebody Talk To… Jessica Morgan and John Baldessari [TATE Etc.]
Tate Modern opens most extensive John Baldessari retrospective in the UK [ArtDaily]
John Baldessari: Tate Modern [ArtForum]
John Baldessari at Tate Modern, Jonathan Jones[Guardian]
John Baldessari, Tate Modern – review by Helen Sumpter [Time Out]
John Baldessari: Pure Beauty/Tate Modern, London [Vernissage TV]

The Hayward Gallery, in London’s Southbank Centre, is currently hosting the UK’s first major retrospective of the leading Californian artist Edward Ruscha. The exhibition is comprised entirely of paintings – by highlighting this medium in a multidisciplinary oeuvre testifies to Ruscha’s influence on it.  After all, in 1956 Ruscha enrolled at the Chouinard Art Institute, Los Angeles, intending to train as a commercial artist, but this course was diverted somewhat after taking complementary fine art classes: this truth is made greatly evident in this exhibition in which the works hover at an interesting crossroads where graphic design meets Conceptualism in painting.

Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights (1962) via The Guardian

More text, images and related links after the jump…

Annie (1962) via The Guardian

Ruscha’s interest in typography, book production and advertising is prolific and central to these works. Through his plundering of popular culture he references and his love affair with LA, the city he described as “the ultimate cardboard cut out town.” Ruscha’s work weaves a strong thread with American post-war modernity, so much so that this body of work is often described as a “portrait of American culture”.

OOF, Ed Ruscha (1962-1963) via The Guardian

The prevalent theme in this exhibition is words – their design, meaning and context. In his works from the early 1960s, Ruscha proves that paintings are not mute. Brief, big, bold words like “NOISE” and “OOF” make onomatopoeic visuals that reverberate around the gallery in bold shapes and colours that are as punchy as the spoken word. “The visual noise of words crammed into commercial magazines and newspapers cried out to have art made of it,” he commented, “I just obliged.”

As in English Drama or Oily, the aesthetic beauty of lettering is manipulated by Ruscha to make visual puns. It could be said that with Ruscha’s wordings the devil’s in the detail: for two paintings, Faith and Purity, referencing his Roman Catholic upbringing, Ruscha chose a typeface designed by Giambattista Bodoni, typesetter in the Vatican‘s printing works. When he became temporarily dissatisfied with using paint, he used household products and organic substances, such as drink or bodily fluids to stain longer phrases onto canvases.

It’s Only Vanishing Cream (1973) via The Guardian

The Old Tech-Chem Building (2003) via The Guardian

His love of lettering culminates in monumental canvases where words become landscapes – in a literal way with The Back of Hollywood (1977) to the subtler A Particular Kind of Heaven (1983). The changing backgrounds from generic sunsets to the Paramount Pictures-esque mountain act like scene changes in a movie where words are the protagonists. Ruscha explains: “Words are pattern-like and in their horizontality they answer my investigation into landscape. They’re almost not words – they’re objects that become words.”

The Back of the Hollywood, Ed Ruscha (1977) via The Guardian

The importance of graphical structure in his student works, 1938 and E. Ruscha, is irrefutable, but the influence of Abstract Expressionism (taught in his fine art classes) creates a tension between what is construct and what is chance. Ruscha said that his work “had to be planned and preconceived, or rather wondered about, before being done.” This is true even of the “mistake” positioning of the ‘HA’ in ‘RUSCHA’ in the latter work. Yet the handling of the paint in these instances is almost wholly in line with Abstract Expressionism. In this vein, the precisionist perfection one gleans from a photograph of Ruscha’s work belies the presence of the artist’s hand that we see in reality.

Later, in 1986, Ruscha began a series of silhouette paintings, returning again to Abstract Expressionism, in this instance the work of Franz Kline. However he rejects Kline’s energetic and resounding brushstrokes in favour of a “strokeless” mist emitted from a spray gun. He explained it thus: “I’m doing this because I’m tired of brushstrokes…I wanted something smokey and difficult to see.”

Untitled (1986)

Securing The Last Letter, 1964 Courtesy Collection of Emily Fisher Landau, New York © Ed Ruscha, 2009 Photography: Paul Ruscha

Ruscha, despite acknowledging the figurative nature of his work, insists the genesis of it is abstract art. Obvious in this exhibition is the ambiguity of his practise; a tension between figurative and abstract graphic pattern, high and low culture, design and art, the individual hand versus the machine, that is the essence of Pop Art. In fact he ironically commented that he felt “newspapers, magazines, books and words to be more meaningful than what some damn oil painter was doing.”

Related Links:
Ed Ruscha: 50 years of painting, Hayward Gallery, London [The Independent]
Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years of Painting at the Hayward Gallery, SE1 [Times UK]
Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years of Painting [The Guardian]
Ed Ruscha, Hayward [Time Out]
Movie director David Lynch on artist Ed Ruscha [Times UK]

Now on view at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm are two light installations by Anthony McCall. McCall’s first “solid light” piece was the 1973 film, ‘Line Describing a Cone,” a work that is now legendary. The 16mm film projected a white circle that, over the course of half an hour, grew to a conical sculpture of light. For the 2004 Whitney Biennial, McCall recreated that work using newer technology that gives the projected image greater visibility and complexity. The new piece, ‘Doubling Back,’ was recently acquired by the Moderna Museet and is one of the works on view.

Anthony McCall’s ‘Doubling Back’ via Moderna Museet

Anthony McCall’s ‘You and I Horizontal’ via Moderna Museet

The second installation is called ‘You and I horizontal’ and works with the same technology and imagery as the first. Lines of white light are projected in a dark space filled with fog, reminiscent of smoke-filled cinemas of a bygone era. The exhibition also includes around 30 drawings of light waves, which the artist calls “scores” of his films.

Installation view of Anthony McCall’s ‘Doubling Back’ via Artinfo

Moderna Museet Now: Anthony McCall runs October 10-December 6, 2009 in Stockholm.

Moderna Museet Now: Anthony McCall [Moderna Museet]
Moderna Museet Now/Anthony McCall [Artinfo]
Moderna Museet presents Two Light Installations by Anthony McCall [Art Knowledge News]

Related links
Barbara Kruger “Between Being Born and Dying” installation [Lever House]
Barbara Kruger Bio [PBS]
Barbara Kruger at Lever House [Lindsay Pollock]
Helvetica at 50 [BBC News]
50 Years of Helvetica exhibition [MoMa]

More text and images after the jump…

Graphic appeal is one of the unquestionable strengths of Kruger’s installation via Lever House Collection

It is not coincidental that Barbara Kruger has adapted the verbal and textual content for her dynamic commentary of quotidian society. Having studied art and design with Diane Arbus at the Parsons School of Design in New York, Kruger developed a successful career in publishing working in graphic design and as an art director for Conde Nast publications, Aperture and others. Her well established body of work generally explores the notions of consumerism and communication media. Kruger’s tools are her pithy and often poignant slogans, questions and phrases, which confront, inform, and humor the viewer with their nonchalance.

Exterior of the Lever House installation via Lever House Collection

Similar to radio and advertising announcements Kruger’s words beckon one to “know nothing forget everything believe anything.” The stark contrast of black and white, the blunt manner in which these letters pop off clean and serene walls of the Lever House are distinct elements that force themselves to enter the viewers gaze.  Political issues, feminisms, consumerism, individual autonomy, and desire, all enlist on the mission to engage the public on an intellectual level.

Entrance to the Lever House via Lever House Collection

Barbara Kruger carries out her messages in a condensed, ultra-modern Helvetica font.  The typeface, designed by Max Meidinger and Edouard Hoffman some 52 years ago, was subject of the special exhibition “50 Years of Helvetica” held at the Museum of Modern Art April 2007 until March 2008. Its significance in everyday context is unmistakable and has appeared to soothe our lives via notes on our safety, travel, mailings, and other public communication. The smooth, clean lines create a neutral, universal and incredibly modern form, which Kruger uses to her advantage. Helvetica by the artist’s hand has gained a new dimension and proportion, one of an active participant in our social arena.

Interior installation view via Lever House Collection

One of Kruger’s slogans that faces a  public courtyard via Lever House Collection

Condensed Helvetica transforms the inside lobby of the Lever House via Lever House Collection

Part of Barbara Kriger’s “Believe Anything” via Lever House Collection

Currently on view at Haunch of Venison in London is an exhibition that explores the connections between four seminal artists; Enrico Castellani, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, and Günther Uecker. The exhibition includes works from 1964 to today from these four artists who were born within six years of each other and shared aesthetic objects while working on different sides of the Atlantic.

Installation view of Castellani/Flavin/Judd/Uecker via Haunch of Venison

More text, related links and images after the jump….

Installation view of Castellani/Flavin/Judd/Uecker via Haunch of Venison

Installation view of Castellani/Flavin/Judd/Uecker via Haunch of Venison

While these four artists may share similar birth dates, aesthetic objects and similar problems to overcome; they all hail from significantly different backgrounds. Castellani trained as an architect in Brussels, Uecker went to art school and the Kunstakademie in the former German Democratic Republic, while Flavin and Judd studied art history and philosophy respectively in the US.

Enrico Castellani’s ‘Superficie Argento’ via Haunch of Venison

Günther Uecker’s ‘Licht-Schlitz (Light Line)’ via Haunch of Venison

The shared concerns of these artists are cleverly revealed in this exhibition: objecthood, new materials, structure, surface, volume and light all appear as important to these artists. The work of Judd and Flavin converts space into ‘objects’. Both Castellani and Uecker, two artists rarely seen in London, explore the properties of the two dimensional surface by using nails to liberate the surface from compositional restrictions and create space and volume. Uecker and Flavin both share an interest in the use of light and incorporate light sources within their work. The connections between the four artists are manifold and revealing.

Installation view of Castellani/Flavin/Judd/Uecker via Haunch of Venison

Enrico Castellani’s ‘Superficie Rossa’ via Haunch of Venison

Installation view of Castellani/Flavin/Judd/Uecker via Haunch of Venison

Installation view of Castellani/Flavin/Judd/Uecker via Haunch of Venison

From these comparisons, also appear interesting contrasts; the monochrome relief surfaces of Castellani contrast with Uecker’s canvases pierced by nails, and Judd’s immaculate industrial objects.

Donald Judd’s ‘Untitled’ via Haunch of Venison

Günther Uecker’s ‘Weisse Stelle (White Place)’ via Haunch of Venison

In his seminal 1965 text Specific Objects, Judd wrote of an art that was ‘neither painting nor sculpture’, before including both Flavin and Castellani in his survey of the ground–breaking developments in the art of the time. The exhibition promises to be revelatory, setting emblematic works by Judd and Flavin in a European context and asserting the importance of contemporary innovations

Installation view of Castellani/Flavin/Judd/Uecker via Haunch of Venison

Dan Flavin’s ‘Untitled (to Barbara Lipper)’ via Haunch of Venison

Günther Uecker’s ‘Ecke (Corner)’ via Haunch of Venison

Installation view of Castellani/Flavin/Judd/Uecker via Haunch of Venison

Dan Flavin’s ‘untitled (to Donna 5a)’ via Haunch of Venison

Related Links:
Castellani/Flavin/Judd/Uecker [Haunch of Venison]
Video: Günther Uecker interview – Culture Minute [Telegraph]

Opening this Halloween at O.H.W.O.W. gallery in Miami is what some may call a 10,000 square feet haunted house, and others may refer to as a large-scale site-specific installation leading to the exhibit by Neckface.  “Devil’s Disciple”, the artist’s first solo show in Miami, already has, and will undoubtedly continue to contribute to the ongoing dialectic that revolves around Neckface. As the masked idol of thousands repeatedly breaks the boundaries of acceptable, he simultaneously manages to maintain and excite the curiosity of art historians and climb the rigid hierarchy he so opposes. Perhaps, it is the innocence in the immediacy of expression that makes charming what otherwise is conceived as revolting; perhaps art world misses the documented urge of expression.
When asked about his inspiration and creative process Neckface answers: “Somtimes its just fucked up situations that i think of in my head, sometimes its what i would really like to do to someone, whether it would be an ex-girlfriend or somebody who pissed me off earlier in the day …” It is the brutal, almost primal and ironically- the unmasked, that pulls the viewer in Neckface’s world.  Sartre writes “I am the one who pulls myself from the nothingness to which I aspire: the hatred, the disgust of existing, these are as many ways to make myself exist, to thrust myself into existence”. Neckface’s step into the realm coined as “aesthetic of disgust” is endearing and effective for it is uncalculated and raw. “Devil’s Disciple” will be opening at O.H.W.O.W. on October 31, 2009. “Halloween is my day. Some people like Christmas, I like Halloween” explains the artist.

Neckface creates a dummy in the window of O.H.W.O.W. via NBC Miami

More text, pictures, video and excerpts from Neckface’s answers to AO after the jump…

Neckface via O.H.W.O.W.

Deleuze when explaining the genius of Foucault speaks of producing new kinds of statements, Lenin has done so, 1968 has done so, and even Hitler he says, was a great producer of new statements.  “New statements can be diabolical” …  The idea as Deleuze describes it, is to see something imperceptible, to think at something’s limit, to reach the intolerable, otherwise the statement does not encompass both seeing and speaking. The 25 year old Neckface has reached the intolerable. Perhaps this serves as a reason for the increasing interest of art critics, gallery owners and auction house professionals in the work created by the enigmatic street artist.

Neckface’s watercolor painting via Jani Svahn

Neckface transformed the entire space of O.H.W.O.W. gallery, thus becoming the curator of his own show. “That’s a lot of space to fill” he says “so I asked my family to help me out. My family has been doing a haunted house for the past 25 years in front of our house. They do it every year in my hometown. So I shipped all the Halloween stuff out here and I flew my whole family out so they could make it here, I’m forcing everyone to go through the house in order to get into my show”. Also for “Devil’s Disciple” opening Neckface arranges a skate demo. With a long history in the skating community, Neckface invites Baker and Deathwish Team, one of the best skate teams in the US, to put on a demo show throughout the evening of his opening on Halloween.

Neckface tells us about the last time he created a show on Halloween: “It was awesome, everybody showed up to the show in costume, it was like a freak show. I love it.” And when asked about the sources of his inspiration, the young artist responds: “I am inspired by a lot of stuff that’s not inspiring to anyone else, crackheads on the street, retarded people, dirty lil kids with chocolate all over their face, seeing car accidents, serial killers, losing at scratch tickets, being broke, getting stuck in an elevator, not giving money to the homeless, dog fights, stepping in human shit, the smell of burnt hair. I am inspired by all kinds of weird shit, as far as artists, I like Ned Kelly, Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez, The Unbomber, Snoop Dogg, and Ed Gein.”

Neckface “Devil’s Disciple” NBC Miami

- Author Manan Ter-Grigoryan (Interview questions by Julie Solovyeva)

Last night, October 29, marked the inauguration of a new annual art event: Rob Pruitt presented The First Annual Art Awards at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New Yorkin association with the city’s oldest alternative art space, White Columns.

The awards were conceived by artist, Rob Pruitt, as a performance-based artwork; for the occasion he recruited the characters of Index Magazine’s wry satirical web series, Delusional Downtown Divas. The New York Times have reported that “…the Divas schemed to infiltrate the art establishment by any means possible. In one segment they pitched a tent in the Guggenheim, doing their laundry in the lobby fountain.”

Jeffrey Deitch and Kembra Pfahler at The First Annual Art Awards at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum via style.com

More images, text and related links after the jump….

Rob Pruitt’s ‘The First Annual Art Awards’ ceremony at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum via Guggenheim Museum

The Delusional Downtown Divas via style.com

An artist famed for mocking the artworld in his work, there was inevitably doubts over the seriousness with which one ought to view the awards. Nancy Spector, chief curator of the Guggenheim commented that “there’s a little faux-naïveté there, and we all become complicit.  We’re interested in the fine line between parody and reality that Rob so beautifully embodies in his work.”

For Pruitt himself, he acknowledged that “in these economic times when probably nothing is selling anyway, it’s a good moment to come together and have a laugh and raise money.” – the event was also acting as a fundraiser for the Guggenheim, White columns and Studio in a School. Pruitt also recognizes what is the surely the most distinguished element of the awards, “it gives praise to some things that have excited a large amount of people over the last year.”

Winner of the Lifetime Achievement awards: Curator Kasper König and artist Joan Jonas via style.com

Artist of the Year: Mary Heilmann via style.com

A group of more than four hundred artists and art world professionals were invited to form the Nominating Council for the inaugural awards’ eleven categories. And, while posing as a mockery of a Hollywood award ceremony, with high profile prizes up-for-grabs, the Art Awards set to honor and publicly acknowledge the real successes and achievements of artists, curators, critics, and gallerists during the previous year. Two lifetime Achievement Awards were determined by Rob Pruitt along with organizing partners the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and White Columns; these awards were bestowed upon artist Joan Jonas and curator Kasper König of the Museum Ludwig, Cologne.

Winner Cynthia Plaster Caster and Rob Pruitt via style.com

Kylie Minogue, James Franco, Linda Yablonsky, and Klaus Biesenbach via style.com

After a dinner of locally sourced cuisine from Brooklyn-based restaurants and chefs, presenters including Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Museum Richard Armstrong, Cecily Brown, Jeffrey Deitch, James Franco, Knight Landesman, Julianne Moore, and Guggenheim Chief Curator Nancy Spector announced the winners:

Artist of the Year
WINNER: Mary Heilmann
Louise Bourgeois
Urs Fischer
Dan Graham

Curator of the Year
WINNER: Connie Butler
Klaus Biesenbach
Daniel Birnbaum
Massimiliano Gioni

Exhibition Outside the United States
WINNER: Jeff Koons, Versailles, Château de Versailles, France
Francis Bacon, Tate Britain, London
Mike Kelley: Educational Complex Onwards: 1995–2008, Wiels Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels
Wolfgang Tillmans: Lighter, Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin

Group Show of the Year, Gallery
WINNER: Who’s Afraid of Jasper Johns?, Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York
A Twilight Art, Harris Lieberman, New York
Your Gold Teeth II, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York
ZERO in New York, Sperone Westwater, New York

Group Show of the Year, Museum
WINNER: The Pictures Generation, 1974–1984, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
After Nature, New Museum, New York
The Quick and the Dead, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York

Calvin Klein Collection New Artist of the Year Award
WINNER: Ryan Trecartin
Elad Lassry
Daniel McDonald
Marlo Pascual

The Rob Pruitt Award
WINNER: Cynthia Plaster Caster

Solo Show of the Year, Gallery
WINNER: Manzoni: A Retrospective, Gagosian Gallery, New York
Cindy Sherman, Metro Pictures, New York
Paul Sharits, Greene Naftali Gallery, New York
Picasso: Mosqueteros, Gagosian Gallery, New York

Solo Show of the Year, Museum
WINNER: Martin Kippenberger: The Problem Perspective, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Museum of Modern Art, New York
Dan Graham: Beyond, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Lawrence Weiner: As Far as the Eye Can See, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Live Forever: Elizabeth Peyton, New Museum, New York

Writer of the Year
WINNER: Jerry Saltz
Tim Griffin
John Kelsey
Walter Robinson

Stefano Tonchi and Klaus Biesenbach via style.com

Charlotte Ford and Ryan Trecartin via style.com

Highlights from the Art Awards ceremony including video montages created for each category will be available to view on Guggenheim.org. Additionally, a series of segments devoted to The First Annual Art Awards will be broadcast by Ovation TV and is available on OvationTV.com.

Related Links:
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
White Columns
Studio in a School
The Delusional Downtown Divas [Index Magazine]
Art Awards and Irony at the Guggenheim [NYTimes]
Screen Test [The New Yorker]
The First Annual Art Awards [Daily News]
Singing the Art World Elrectric [Style.com]
People are talking about… The First Annual Art Awards at the Guggenheim [Vogue]

Ghosts – an exhibition of photographs by Sam Taylor-Wood – is currently in its last days at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in West Yorkshire, England. The Ghosts series was originally exhibited as part of Taylor-Wood’s most recent show, Yes I No, at White Cube in October 2008. Now exhibited in the former home of the famed Brontë sisters – Charlotte, Emily and Anne – a new emphasis is brought to the series which should be apparent to any reader of Emily Brontë’s passionate novel, Wuthering Heights. All of Taylor-Wood’s photographs were shot in a four-mile radius of the supposed backdrop of Wuthering Heights and capture the bleak and unremitting landscape of the moors which echoes the brutal portrayal of heightened passion and suffering found in the fictional novel.

Ghosts IV, Sam Taylor-Wood (2008) via The Independent

More text and related links and images after the jump…..

Ghosts VI, Sam Taylor-Wood (2008) via White Cube

“We hope that by exhibiting Ghosts in the place that inspired it, new layers and connections will be drawn between the work and the Parsonage, as well as offering the public a unique opportunity to see important contemporary art in an unusual setting” stated Jenna Holmes, Arts Officer at the Brontë Parsonage Museum. The photographs have been re-sized to suitably fit the Parsonage Museum and will be exhibited are being exhibited as part of its Contemporary Arts Programme 2009.

Ghosts V, Sam Taylor-Wood (1998) via White Cube

Taylor-Wood first read Wuthering Heights only months before embarking on her series. One night while at her second-home in North Yorkshire, prior to her break-up with gallery-owner Jay Jopling, she felt compelled to experience a novel she hoped to be “fantastically romantic.” After reading, Taylor-Wood felt it necessary to experience the wild landscape and the turbulent emotional weather that had inspired Brontë and so she set off on a trek across the moors with an assistant and camera equipment in the middle of February- a time of year Taylor-Wood described as prefect; “freezing cold.” Taylor-Wood and her assistant walked for hours in the unremitting sleet and winds. A moment of relief came when the pair finally reached Top Withins – the site of the action in Wuthering Heights – when the clouds parted and the sun appeared as captured in Ghosts IV.

Ghosts II, Sam Taylor-Wood (2008) via White Cube

Traces of the novel are to be found in Taylor-Wood’s landscapes. Ghosts II depicts two solitary leafless trees that twist towards each other, a painting Taylor-Wood calls “Cathy and Heathcliff” – it therefore serves undeniably as a testament Brontë’s characters and to the all-encompassing love that destroyed them and all those around them.

Ghosts I, Sam Taylor-Wood (2008) via The Independent

Taylor-Wood explores other classic stories in her photographs yet a hopelessly romantic pulse seems to run through the show. In an interview with the Independent upon her show at White Cube in 2008, Taylor-Wood cited Ghosts I as her favourite photograph in the series “…..because it reminds me of the cinematic landscape present in David Lean’s big-screen epics such as ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. It’s almost as if your hero is going to come riding over the top of the sand dunes. It is quite barren and empty but there is also that sense of something coming over the horizon.”

The show continues through November 2 and is free on admission to the museum.

Related Links:
Brontë Parsonage Museum Homepage
Sam Taylor-Wood – Artist Page [White Cube]
Heathcliff and me: Sam Taylor-Wood’s Ghosts [The Independent]
Sam Taylor-Wood: Art of Darkness [NYTimes]
Sam Taylor-Wood, Keighley [The Guardian]
Parsonage Power [The Guardian]

Currently on show, through November 15, at Middlesbrough’s Institute of Modern Art (mima), is Gerhard Richter: Modern Times. Gerhard Richter is undoubtedly one of the most significant artists of our time; with works held by almost every major museum in the world, and is said to have brought ‘painting back to life.’  This exhibition covers all aspects of the artist’s complex practice and is particularly important as it includes unique works in many different media. Gerhard Richter: Modern Times comes close on the heels of a number of exhibitions that have widened the public’s view of Richter including a major retrospective at The National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, a groundbreaking survey of his portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, London, and the unforgettable 4900 Colours: Version II at the Serpentine Gallery in London.

11 Schieben [11 Panes], Gerhard Richter (2004) via mima

More Text and related links after the jump….

48 Portraits, Gerhard Richter (1971 – 1972) via The National Gallery of Scotland

The exhibition draws on ARTIST ROOMS – a touring collection of international contemporary art created through one of the largest and most imaginative gifts of art ever made to museums in Britain – that of the British art dealer Anthony d’Offay. In light of expanding artist’s exposure in Britain, ARTIST ROOMS on Tour with The Art Fund, has been devised to take those displays beyond the collection’s owners, Tate and National Galleries of Scotland, and to reach and inspire new audiences across the country.

The 725 works in the collection have been guided by the concept of individual rooms devoted to particular artists and included major bodies of work by seminal figures Diane Arbus, Joseph Beuys, Gilbert & George, Damien Hirst, Anselm Kiefer, Jeff Koons, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ed Ruscha and Andy Warhol.

Eckspiegel, Braun-Blau (Corner Mirror, Brown-Blue), Gerhard Richter (1991) via gerhardrichter.com

Gerhard Richter: Modern Times comprises of four distinctly themed rooms. Room 1 presents a meditative installation of monochrome and abstract works, including Eckspiegel, braun-blau, (corner mirror, brown-blue). Like mirrors, their uniform surface is only broken by random interventions such as the reflection of visitors to the gallery.

Zwei Skulpturen für einem Raum von Palermo (Two Sculptures for a Room by Palermo), Gerhard Richter (1971) via gerhardrichter.com

Room 2 houses Zwei Skulpturen für einem Raum von Palermo (Two Sculptures for a Room by Palermo); one of the very few sculptures ever made by Gerhard Richter, the work consists of two plaster heads, painted with grey oil paint, one a self-portrait of Richter, the other a portrait of the German artist Blinky Palermo. One of the most written about and referred to works in Richter’s oeuvre, it has rarely been exhibited.

Abstraktes Bild, Gerhard Richter (1994) via The National Gallery of Scotland

Room 3 showcases a number of abstract paintings which relate to a series of works in which he paints images from photographs but blurs them slightly to remove the focus from their composition and subject matter. An example in this exhibition is Abstraktes Bild, a painting created by dragging a board over the canvas to smear the paint and reveal the layers underneath. In other words, he ‘blurs’ what he himself has painted.

Self Portrait Standing, Three Times, Gerhard Richter (1991) via gerhardrichter.com

Also in this room is, Self-portrait Standing, Three Times, a rare excursion into depicting his own appearance by the normally reclusive artist. As well as painting canvases based on photographic images since 1989, Richter has also painted actual photographs to create works. In doing so, he has emphasized the surface reality of the pain interacting with the forms in the photographs. Self-portrait Standing, Three Times poignantly it depicts the artist looking backwards in a series of six photographic stills each one gradually erasing the artist with gradations of crimson paint.

Gilbert, George, Gerhard Richter (1975) via The National Gallery of Scotland

Mima is perhaps most highlighting, however, about room 4 of the exhibition which presents a series of thirty rarely seen drawings, combining both abstract and figurative works and offering a remarkable insight into the artist.  Included in this room is Gilbert, George: a dual portrait of the British artists (aka. Gilbert Proesch and George Passmore) who became known in the late 1960s as ‘living sculptures’, dressing in similar tweed suits and doing everything together. In 1975, on the occasion of a show in Düsseldorf, Gilbert and George commissioned Richter to make a portrait of them. Richter made eight paintings in all, using superimposed photographs of the duo in order to suggest their inseparable mutually beneficial identity.

Abstraktes, Gerhard Richter via gerhardrichter.com

Related Links:
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art [mima]
Gerhard Richter Homepage
Exhibitions Preview: Gerhard Richter in Middlesbrough [Guardian.co.uk]
ARTIST ROOMS: Gerhard Richter [TateOnline]
ARTIST ROOMS [The National Gallery of Scotland]